Food Chain (Repaint)

A repaint of OG Food Chain from the Mercadian Masques set, Val Mayerik's top card in Magic. Food Chain is a three-mana green from the Mercadian Masques set, known for enabling infinite mana combos with specific creatures. It allows a player to exile a creature they control to add mana equal to its cost (plus one), but only for casting creatures. The key interaction is with creatures that can be cast from exile, most notably Misthollow Griffin and Eternal Scourge. This creates a loop of exiling and recasting the same creature to generate infinite creature mana. From there, a player typically would to win by casting an arbitrarily large Walking Ballista, or repeatedly casting an ETB (Enters the Battlefield) creature to draw and win (e.g. Hydroid Krasis). This combo is the heart of Legacy Food Chain decks, usually in red-blue-green (RUG/Temur) or red-green (RG/ Gruul) shells with cards like Force of Will, Manipulate Fate and Unstable Amulet to win the game. It saw a spike in popularity when Misthollow Griffin was printed and again with Eternal Scourge, both of which made the combo more consistent. Though the deck is considered quite fringe in today’s legacy metagame, it still has to be respected and can be a solid choice regardless. Food Chain is also popular in Commander decks. In cEDH it’s a well-known engine (e.g. paired with Thrasios / Tymna or other commanders that can exploit the infinite creature casts. Food Chain is not on the Reserved List. It has been reprinted in various sets (Double Masters 2022/ Secret Lair Drop Series/The List).